FPÖ leader StracheThe southern Austrian state of Carinthia was long a source of inspiration for right-wing populists across Europe. As early as 1989, the Freedom Party of Carinthia (FPK) briefly nabbed the governor's mansion in the state. In 1999, the right-wingers – behind the charismatic leadership of Jörg Haider – emerged victorious in state elections once again, and have managed to hold onto the state since.

Until Sunday, that is. In a key state election seen as a bellwether for the Austrian general election approaching in September, Carinthian voters delivered a painful blow to the FPK, the state chapter of the national Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Sunday evening exit polls indicated that the FPK managed a mere 17.1 percent of the vote – a veritable collapse since their 45 percent result four years ago. It was the largest vote-on-vote disintegration ever seen in postwar Austria.

The Social Democratic party SPÖ won with 37.1 percent of the vote, while the center-right ÖVP landed in third place with 14.2 percent.

Sunday's result – combined with their meager 8.2 percent showing in the other Austrian state election on Sunday, in Lower Austria – does not bode well for the right-wing populists this autumn. "It was a clear rejection and a … clear demand for a restart," said a visibly irate FPÖ head Hans-Christian Strache on Austrian television on Monday morning.

Spiegel, 4 March 2013

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Campus Extremism, Freedom and Security Conference

12 March 2013, 4pm – 7:30pm, at the New Theatre, East Building, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

In light of the increased opposition among student groups and university lecturers around the government's counter-terrorism strategy, the LSE Students' Union is convening this conference to provide a forum for dialogue and discussion between key stakeholders in the debate around campus extremism, freedom and security.

Speakers:

1) Trevor Phillips, Former Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission
2) Dr Phyllis Starkey, Former MP and Chair of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee
3) Professor Ian Cram, Head of the Law School at the University of Leeds
4) Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari MBE, The East London Communitites Organisation
5) Jonathan Birdwell, Head of the Citizens Programme at Demos
6) Hicham Yezza, Editor-in-chief of Ceasefire Magazine and the 'Nottingham Two'
7) Pete Mercer, Vice President of the National Union of Students
8) Michael Chessum, President of the University of London Union
9) Omar Ali, President of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies

Chaired by: Dr Kai Spiekermann (LSE) and Dr Jasmine Gani (LSE)

This Conference is supported by the University of London Union (ULU) and the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS)

Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #LSExtremism

For further information, visit: http://bit.ly/14gctyY

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Under the upbeat headline "Kev Carroll Becomes British Freedom Chairman", the British Freedom party reports the rather less positive news that their previous chairman, Paul Weston, has in fact resigned.

According to the BFP, Weston has "stepped down to concentrate on a literary contribution to the battle against Britain's national trajectory". Which I suppose is another way of saying that he has, quite understandably, decided that the BFP is a complete waste of time.

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Anti-Islam crusader Daniel Nalliah and his evangelical Christian church are set to fight a plan to build a mosque in the same street.

Mr Nalliah, a pastor at Catch the Fire Ministries, said his church was weeks away from building a $2 million base at 25 Green Street, Doveton.

He recently learnt of a planning application by an Afghan community group to build the Omar Farooq Mosque next door. The church, along with more than 100 petitioners including adjoining residents, will formally object to Casey Council over the mosque proposal.

No objections had been raised against Catch the Fire's church, which had been approved by the council, Mr Nalliah said.

Afghan-Australian Association of Victoria president Khaliq Fazal, as spokesman for the mosque proponents, accused Mr Nalliah and his church of distributing "hysterical" anti-mosque leaflets to "agitate" neighbours.

He said the mosque was a "place for peace and for the worship of the same god that we all believe in".

"The Afghan community has a very good reputation and has assimilated well in a multicultural society since the 1860s. We've never had any problem with any other religions. We believe in Jesus Christ as well, so what's the problem?"

Mr Nalliah — an outspoken figure who sparked outrage for attributing Black Saturday bushfires to Victoria's abortion laws — said he did not know who was behind the leaflets.

He said his objections to the mosque trailed back to a long-running racial vilification dispute with the Islamic Council of Victoria over a Catch the Fire newsletter about Muslims and the Koran in 2002.

Mr Nalliah said he and his family received death threats during the dispute, which cost the church $600,000. "Not once have we said people should bust up a Muslim or burn down a mosque.

"We don't approve of Islam as a religion but we love Muslim people. Islam teaches that those who follow other religions are infidels.

"It is a religion that doesn't value freedom of religion. Having those same teachings right under our noses is counter-productive to our church."

He said that homes vacated by "fed-up" neighbours would be bought up by Muslims, creating a "sharia [the moral code and religious law of Islam] zone".

Casey planning manager Duncan Turner said the council would consider any public submissions "received up until it makes its decision".

The Age, 26 November 2012

See also "Share the faith? Not for this Doveton pastor", The Age, 27 November 2012

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Earlier this week the English Defence League's political wing, the British Freedom party, announced the appointment of their new South West regional organiser. She's an EDL activist from Bristol named Chelsea Anne White.

White's explanation of her decision to join British Freedom features the usual anti-Muslim rhetoric – "mosques, we don't want them and we don't want burka-clad women on our beaches.... We don't want animals sent for halal slaughter".

However, in a statement on her Facebook page outlining what motivates her longstanding support for the EDL, White makes it clear that her Islamophobia is part of a wider philosophy that differs little from the traditional skin-colour racism of the far right:

"WHEN YOU'VE BEEN AROUND IN THE E.D.L. FOR AS LONG AS SOME OF US ANGELS....YOUR ANGER CHANGES FROM BEING OUTRAGED TO A CALM RESOLVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT....WE SEE IT DAY IN DAY OUT....INJUSTICE....WE LIVE IN A COUNTRY....OUR COUNTRY.. WHERE IF YOUR WHITE AND ENGLISH YOU DON'T COUNT FOR MUCH BECAUSE THE VOTE IS IN THE AREAS THEY HAVE FLOODED WITH IMMIGRANTS."

You might think that a party which claims its hostility towards Islam has nothing to do with racism would balk at appointing such an obvious racist as its public representative. But then, given BF leader Paul Weston's own views on the "ethnic cleansing" of the "indigenous race", that would be a bit hypocritical, wouldn't it?

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Sam Harris presents his characteristically nuanced thoughts on The Innocence of Muslims and what he terms "the latest wave of Muslim hysteria and violence". He writes:

"Consider what is actually happening: Some percentage of the world's Muslims – Five percent? Fifteen? Fifty? It's not yet clear – is demanding that all non-Muslims conform to the strictures of Islamic law."

Of course, Muslims would not be able to get away with this if it wasn't for the capitulation of spineless lefties:

"The contagion of moral cowardice followed its usual course, wherein liberal journalists and pundits began to reconsider our most basic freedoms in light of the sadomasochistic fury known as 'religious sensitivity' among Muslims. Contributors to The New York Times and NPR spoke of the need to find a balance between free speech and freedom of religion – as though the latter could possibly be infringed by a YouTube video. As predictable as Muslim bullying has become, the moral confusion of secular liberals appears to be part of the same clockwork."

Muslims out to impose sharia law on the west, aided and abetted by cowardly dhimmis – leaving aside the rather more sophisticated prose style, you could be reading Pamela Geller.

If only the US government would take Sam's advice and step up the racial profiling and extend the use of torture. I'm sure relations between the Muslim world and the west would improve significantly as a result.

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Glen Jenvey, the self-styled terrorism expert responsible for the Sun's fabricated "Terror Target Sugar" story about a supposed Muslim extremist hitlist (although he now denies this), recently posted a glowing account of the English Defence League and its membership ("I was amazed at the grass root support of EDL and the British Freedom Party which is a new political party which has been now merged with the EDL leadership ... it was made up of every race as they have a open membership which is not reported in the UK media").

And now it appears that Jenvey has taken his admiration one step further and joined the British Freedom party. They have crossposted an article by Jenvey on their website denouncing the sale of halal meat, with an introduction describing him as a British Freedom member.

Given his record, British Freedom might be advised to be a bit wary of Jenvey. A few years back he announced his conversion to Islam, and joined Anjem Choudary's group, only to subsequently declare that this had been a sting operation aimed at exposing Choudary and the terrorist threat he supposedly represents. Before that, Jenvey claimed to have infiltrated the Tamil Tigers.

However, in view of his long history of stoking Islamophobia, which includes an appearance in the notorious documentary Obsession – Radical Islam's War Against the West, there are perhaps stronger grounds for accepting Jenvey's new affiliation as genuine.

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Members of Gungahlin's evangelical community are distributing extremist material from overseas in their campaign against the construction of a mosque on The Valley Avenue.

A senior pastor at a Gungahlin evangelical church contacted The Canberra Times and supplied a video of far-right agitator Paul Weston, the chairman of the British Freedom Party. In the eight-minute video, Mr Weston says Islam was "worse than Nazism" and claimed Islamic influence in Britain would lead to civil war.

The Gungahlin pastor declined to be interviewed yesterday, but said the video had been circulated via email through associates in the community.

The pastor added that their church was not involved in the anti-mosque campaign by the "Concerned Citizens of Canberra".

In the video, Mr Weston said: "Islam in its most fundamental form is Nazism in its desire for global supremacy … In fact, Islam is even worse than Nazism".

Canberra Times, 13 July 2012

The video is an extract from a speech by Weston in Toronto in February. If you can stomach it, you can watch it here.

The British Freedom Party has been building links with co-thinkers in Australia for some time. Last November it ran an interview with the leader of the far-right Australian Protectionist Party.

Incidentally, the Canberra Times is holding a poll on the question "Are you for or against the proposed mosque at Gungahlin?" You can vote here.

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Peter Mullins of British Freedom is convinced that, with the recent appointment of Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll as deputies to BF chairman Paul Weston, his party now has an unbeatable leadership team. Of course, even the finest of political leaders will face unwashed leftist sceptics trying to undermine them.

Via Expose

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In this podcast, Chris interviews two Egyptians, Ehab and AbdelRahman, about their experiences going to Cairo’s Freedom Square, both during the Revolution and now, after hearing the results of the Election.

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British Freedom chairman Paul Weston (centre) with vice chairs Kevin Carroll and and Stephen LennonA British Freedom member has posted a report on the BF website about the Islamic takeover of Croydon (where the Muslim communty comprises 5% of the population, compared with 66% who are Christian). He writes:

"In parts of Croydon things English and things Western have been visibly relegated. It's all halal here, halal there and halal everywhere. If you wish to enjoy an animal that has been spared throat-slashing (after being stunned or not), and killed in a manner befitting our own culture then chances are you'll have to search, and sometimes search hard. There are 'Halal Meat Sold Here' signs that inform the population of the 'enrichment' bequeathed to us via the odious triumvirate that is mass pandering, mass appeasing and mass immigration."

(The BF editor helpfully adds a note pointing out that "in halal slaughter nowadays many animals are stunned before having their throats cut, which is arguably more humane. However this is not the main issue for most people, who are more concerned about unknowingly eating meat that has been sacrificed to Allah".)

Not only are the Muslims taking control of Croydon but things don't seem to be going too well for British Freedom itself in the borough. A branch was set up at the start of the year and was promoted as one of the BFP's success stories, having hit the ground running by setting up a website, a Facebook page and even a daily e-paper, while launching itself enthusiastically into a campaign against the expansion of local mosques. Croydon organiser Lee Cooper appeared to be a rising star in the party, joining the BF executive council in March with the post of Communications Officer.

Last week, however, the struggle against the Islamisation of Croydon suffered as serious setback when Cooper announced that he had "formally resigned from all positions previously held within the British Freedom Party, due to inconsolable differences with certain recently made decisions" – presumably a reference to English Defence League leaders Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll being appointed joint BF vice-chairmen – and he has taken the BF Croydon website, Facebook page and Twitter account with him.

So it looks like the elevation of Lennon and Carroll to the leadership hasn't been an unalloyed benefit for British Freedom, doesn't it?

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Few months passed now after the fuss and the wide wave of condemnation that had been (risen) amid/after a young man from Saudi Arabia posted three tweets in the day of “mawlid an-nabawi”… death threats , calls for public execution and even xenophobic comments erupted on several websites and forums.

The tweets which could be interpreted in many ways expressed according to many internet users blasphemous ideas that deserve harsh punishment. And in a short time what was supposed to be a simple tweet of a confused young man has become a national issue. In few days thousands of comments and tweets were posted in reaction to what hamza wrote and called for the government to arrest him which pushed Kashgari to flee the country. Unfortunately for him , Saudi authorities who has good relations with Malaysia and under large pressure from conservatives issued an international warranty to get him home and succeeded to get him deported from KL despite a court ruling that suspend the deportation.

Ultra conservative powers in Saudi Arabia found in the story an opportunity to wage a campaign of slander and defamation against the growing liberal elite and accuse them of pushing young people towards rebellion and blasphemy. The accusation went even to pretend that what Hamza said in public is exactly the same as what his “teachers” say in private. Then, the campaign against Hamza became a campaign against freedom of expression and calls for more restrictions on newspapers and websites.

The incredible amount of hate comments on the net witnesses of the rage and anger caused by the tweets, but the irony is that all this so much hate was came in the name of the love of the prophet , the prophet we pretend to be a prophet of love and mercy and tolerance . “the prophet of love and mercy” !!!  shouldn’t this make us hold on for a moment to think again ? what would the prophet himself do  to in this case  ? what does the Quran tell us to do with people like hamza or even the “burn Quran day” guy from Florida ? what must we do with people who insult , verbally attack, or mock our religion or our prophet ?

It is so clear that people who engaged themselves in the campaign against Kashgari never asked themselves these questions, and obviously didn’t read or just ignored the following verses.

“And when you see those engaged in [offensive] discourse concerning our verses, then turn away from them until they enter into another conversation. And if Satan cause you to forget, then do not remain after reminder with the wrongdoing people” [6:68]

It seems that simply what Muslims must do when their religion is attacked is to turn away from the person/people who mock or insult their religion. Nothing more nothing less.

“And it has already come down to you in the Book that when you hear the verses of Allah [recited], they are denied [by them] and ridiculed; so do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation. Indeed, you would then be like them” [4:140]

So even when the verse of Allah are denied and ridiculed all what we have to do is do not sit with them, and as it is clear , we can sit and talk with them if they change the conversation… What I do understand from this verse is that I should never overreact to any attack and let others say whatever they want ,  I have just to ignore them when there is no way to a fruitful conversation. In many times the Qur’an ask us to  “let them say what they want” “turn away from them” and described the believers as those who “… turn away from ill speech” [23:3] … “And when they hear ill speech, they turn away from it and say, “For us are our deeds, and for you are your deeds. Peace will be upon you; we seek not the ignorant”  otherwise they have to engage in conversations with the best manner.

“Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best. Indeed, your Lord is most knowing of who has strayed from His way, and He is most knowing of who is [rightly] guided” [16:125]

“And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best, except for those who commit injustice among them, and say, “We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him” [29:46]

“And not equal are the good deed and the bad. Repel [evil] by that [deed] which is better; and thereupon the one whom between you and him is enmity [will become] as though he was a devoted friend” [41:34]

It is strange that people who pretend to be more religious were the more noisy and the less calm in Kashgari’s case to  the contrary of what the Qur’an instructs them, Somehow; the attitude of some of the conservatives does not differ so much from the attitude of the Pharisees in the time of Jesus Christ (priests who refused Jesus in the name of the law and in the name of Moses) . and what we Muslims have to understand is that the true faith make of a Muslim a calm person, someone who control his emotions and think … true faith is not about to believe blindly and get herd mentality   ,

what we need is to restore the teachings of jests and Muhammad about  love, tolerance and mercy.  Instead of the values of hatred and intolerance coming from those who pretend to speech in the name of Moses, jests and Muhammad

regardless of what hamza wanted to say by his “infamous” or “misunderstood” tweets; what remains is a real challenge to Muslims to decide whether to choose the way of sensationalism and brainless reactions against any criticism or even provocation , or to choose to get calm and try to understand the other, or at least to just ignore the provocation as the Quran teaches us . because after all if there is an “infamous” thing in all the story of Hamza Kashgari is the way we reacted to it.

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More than 50 Muslim and non-Muslim civic and religious groups asked leading senators on Thursday (April 12) to rescind the appointment of an outspoken Muslim activist, Zuhdi Jasser, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Jasser, a Navy-trained physician, is decrying the effort – and others to oust him from the independent watchdog panel – as a "smear tactic."

A separate online petition that began circulating last week, also asking for his ouster, has garnered more than 2,000 signatures.

"Their letter is patently dishonest, deceptive, and continues their unprofessional unbridled smear campaign against anyone who chooses to take on Islamic reform against Islamist ideologies and groups regardless of whether we are observant traditional Muslims," Jasser wrote in an email to Religion News Service.

The signatories to the letter, sent to three key senators, argue that Jasser's rhetoric and activism contribute to a culture that treats Muslims as suspects, and that he would subvert the work of the bipartisan commission, which advises federal officials on the status of religious freedom abroad.

"His consistent support for measures that threaten and diminish religious freedoms within the United States demonstrates his deplorable lack of understanding of and commitment to religious freedom and undermines the USCIRF’s express purpose," they wrote.

They cite Jasser's effort to prevent the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, his support for the New York Police Department’s spying on Muslim institutions, and his defense of anti-Shariah laws, which most Muslim civil rights groups say unfairly paint Muslims as anti-American.

Religion News Service, 12 April 2012

See also "64-member coalition opposes new religious freedom appointee", CAIR press release, 12 April 2012

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